Incidentally, Prof. Adamson visited Toronto back in October of this year to present some of his work, and he Tweeted about “the amazing and hospitable group of philosophers in Toronto” he encountered here!

On the podcast, Prof. Pickavé begins with a couple of reasons why philosophers should be interested in emotions. Adamson and Pickavé then go into a discussion of the history of the concept of emotions, called passiones until the 17th century. Questions covered include: where do the human passions of the soul belong? Are they in a higher faculty that we don’t share with animals? Do non-human animals have emotions? What are the physical and mental manifestations of emotions?

Adamson and Pickavé detail theories of emotion in Aquinas, Scotus, and Wodeham, among other thinkers. In Aquinas, for example, “the emotions are located in the appetitive faculty,” observes Adamson. Can we make a case for emotions being associated with other faculties of the soul?